


Stormcoming

by bellmare



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Mythology - Freeform, Social Links, Spoilers, gratuitous headcanons, gratuitous symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 12:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1604810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellmare/pseuds/bellmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We're actually looking for part-time help right now," she says and smiles. Her uniform is oversize, ill-fitting; the red and orange washes her out. It's a terrible colour on her. It matches her eyes.<br/>-<br/>You have forged the Mysterious Transfer Student social link of the Nameless Arcana!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stormcoming

**Author's Note:**

> Did you know I've been sitting on this since December 2012. Hahaha. Wow.
> 
> It was 10000+ words when I first wrote it to rank 8; I did some gleeful pruning in 2013 and cut it down to 6000+ at the same point in the story. Now, I have finally finished it and it is shorter than ever. Aren't you lucky! It means less waffling to read. Fantastic.

**0.**

The girl at the gas station looks like him. He doesn't know what to think.

"We're actually looking for part-time help right now," she says and smiles. Her uniform is oversize, ill-fitting; the red and orange washes her out. It's a terrible colour on her. It matches her eyes.

She extends a hand. "Give it some thought, why don't you? They won't mind if you're a student." Her tone is teasing, conspiratorial. He takes her hand, and says, "thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

He feels sick as they're driving away. He turns in his seat and watches her watching him. There's something familiar about her smile, something familiar about the look in her eyes.

.

He dreams that night, of a voice in the fog.

_Do you seek the truth?_

_If it's truth you desire, come and find me._

.

**I.**

He doesn't know when she transferred in. She wasn't there when he joined Yasogami. The seat by the window at the back of the class got occupied one day and nobody ever said anything. It's odd.

"Odd?" Yosuke says incredulously. "That's Narukami, she's been here for a while. She transferred in a little earlier than you did. Doesn't really talk to anyone, though."

She has thick, pale hair, elaborately swept up with an antique comb. Cherry, Souji thinks, or maybe elder. The wood is dark and shiny with a reddish sheen, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. She reminds him a little of Marie, and he has no idea why.

"Maybe she just doesn't want to talk to you," Chie says matter-of-factly. "She probably sees you coming and turns right around. Y'know, girls can sense ulterior motives."

"I heard she gets sick a lot, which is why she doesn't come to class often. She sort of looks like you, don't you think?" Yukiko says absently as she packs her bag. "Maybe you two are twins separated at birth!"

"I don't have siblings," Souji says. That isn't the point.

"Maybe you shouldn't ask her out just to be safe, Casanova," Yosuke says. Souji ignores him, and carefully treads on his foot for good measure. "Ow--hey, speak of the devil."

Narukami draws close; her fingertips rest on the top of his desk. "Are you a member of the health committee, Seta-san?" she asks.

Chie's elbow digs into Souji's ribs when he stares for too long. He shifts out of range and smiles slowly back at Narukami. It feels strained, insincere.

"Would you mind accompanying me to the nurse's office?"

No, his brain says. "Sure," his mouth says instead.

Narukami is silent all the way down the stairwell; their footsteps sound very loud against the distant trickle of rain.

"Do you think there's much to learn from others?" she asks outside the infirmary.

"I'm sorry?"

"Just curious."

He thinks it over for a while. "Well, I suppose there is."

"Hmhm. Most are not willing to admit that."

Souji laughs humourlessly. "I'm not most people."

She turns and walks towards the entrance of the school, leaving him standing by the nurse's office. "Indeed you aren't. Very well then, Souji Seta. I trust you will not disappoint me."

.

Igor smiles when he holds up the card that defines Narukami. There is nothing on it. "How intriguing," he whispers, as Souji falls into twisting pathways of red.

.

**II.**

Narukami only ever comes to class when it rains.

The skies are dark today, heavy with a passing thunderstorm. She sits with her chin cradled in her palms, gazing out of the window; her Yasogami jacket is crumpled in a loose ball on her lap.

"Nice weather," Souji remarks. They're the only ones left in class.

"Isn't it?"

"... no," he replies and picks up his umbrella. "I was joking."

"What a pity. Don't you like the rain?"

"Makes me nervous. It's a bad omen."

Narukami eyes him, sidelong. "Oho? You say such strange things sometimes." The bell rings distantly. All the clubs are closed today. Souji picks up his bag and prepares to leave. He thinks about going fishing, or maybe staying at Aiya until sundown.

He'd gotten new personas from Igor today. Fell deities and their followers, not belonging to any arcana. Yomotsu-Shikome. Yomotsu-Ikusa. Gorgyra. He's feeling reckless, impulsive; their voices clamour at the back of his mind. "Any plans for today?"

"My, such familiarity." Narukami titters quietly to herself.

"I ... didn't mean--" He makes a mental note to fuse those personae away as soon as possible.

Wordlessly, Narukami stands and takes his hand. She leads him out of the classroom, down the stairs, out into the rain.

They end up at the gazebo in the floodplain. She doesn't care for the shelter of his umbrella; her fair unfurls around her ears, loosening from the teeth of her comb. It curls at the ends, lying flat and heavy across her eyes. "New faces are rare around these parts. Why did you choose Inaba?"

"Parents," he says. It's not entirely true. It's not entirely false, either. Narukami's brows rise slightly.

"I guess I needed a change of scenery and a chance to recover from things. You know. The high-pressure city life. Things." He's thinking about Tatsumi Port Island and a tower that reached into the heavens; a stairway that spiraled towards a moon that fell from the sky.

"How about you? You're a transfer student too, aren't you?"

"Maybe. I guess I needed a change of scenery and a chance to recover from things. You know. The high-pressure city life. Things."

He looks at her, sidelong. She's mocking him.

Narukami lifts her chin and studies the sky. "Looks like there'll be fog soon."

"How dreary."

"I like it," Narukami says, absently combing through the tangled ends of her hair. "The way it covers everything. Everything looks so peaceful and quiet. I think it's soothing."

"Good for you," Souji says. "It means trouble's coming for me."

"... and then," Narukami continues as though she didn't hear him, "it will make you forget."

.

**III.**

He finds Hisano and Narukami on the banks of the Samegawa. They make an odd couple, one dressed in black and the other swathed in white -- like mourners at a funeral.

Narukami wears a sundress despite the weather; it falls almost to her ankles, loose and billowy in a way that makes her look old, older than sixteen -- or seventeen, he isn't sure. A wide red ribbon cuts across her midriff, a bloody slash; she's wearing her hair loose today, the comb tucked at the back of her head. Souji thinks of Marie's comb and wonders idly if it's a new fashion thing, if antique combs are popular now. Maybe they'll make a popular gift on dates.

"What're you doing here," he asks Narukami, "and where's your umbrella?"

"I gave it to Kuroda-san," she says. "It started raining all of a sudden and I happened to be passing by. You should join us. She was just telling me about her husband."

Her smile is a devil's smile, Souji thinks. He cradles the handle of his umbrella in the crook of his arm and drapes his jacket over Narukami's thin shoulders. "You'll catch a cold," he says and extends his umbrella. She doesn't turn around.

"Oh, no, enough about me," Hisano says gently. "Why don't you tell me a little about yourselves? Anyone special in your lives?"

"Hm," Narukami murmurs just as Souji says, "no".

They exchange a glance over Hisano's head. Narukam's lip curls. "Don't be so cold. Are you saying you've never loved anyone?"

"That's none of your business."

"How about you?" Hisano asks Narukami.

"I wonder. Maybe I wanted him to die. I couldn't forgive him for how he'd abandoned me. We're not all that different, Kuroda-san. Forgotten and abandoned. At the end, we're the ones who were left behind."

It's faint, but he can hear it; an undercurrent of something in her voice. Bitterness, maybe; the taut brittleness of anger. He realises he doesn't know anything about her -- not even her name.

Hisano smiles and pats Narukami's knee. "Love is a fragile thing, isn't it? But ... loving, being loved -- and losing it -- all that is what goes into making us human. The lives we spent together were proof of our dedication to each other."

Narukami shrugs. "I suppose you're right."

"I wonder if reincarnation really exists," Hisano murmurs, looking up at the sky through the clear plastic of Narukami's umbrella. "Whether there's someone you love, or have loved ... or when you find someone to love -- remember this old lady's advice: live a long and full life. That is the greatest thing you can do for your beloved."

.

**IV.**

The next time he finds her is on a hot afternoon. She's at the gas station, the Moel jacket draped loosely over her shoulders.

"Don't you have classes?" he asks.

"Maybe. Don't you?"

He frowns. In the warmth of the day, her hair lies limp and close to her face. She looks small and fragile, swallowed by an oversize uniform.

He follows her gaze to the sheaf of origami paper stuffed into the front pocket of his bag. "I have jobs too, you know," he says as an explanation. He doesn't know why he feels so defensive.

"Hm. They say that if you fold a thousand cranes, your wishes will be granted. What do you wish for?"

"World domination," he replies without missing a beat. Narukami bursts out laughing. It has a strange edge to it, not quite like Yukiko's uninhibited amusement. "How about you?"

Narukami her time to answer as she fills his scooter with gas. "I wish for other's wishes to be fulfilled."

"How obtuse."

"I think it's selfless of me." Melinoe laughs along with Narukami; the personae of the nameless arcana have a strange sense of humour. "Particularly when I could wish for a thousand curses upon them instead."

She runs her fingers along the handle of the gas pump. He's suddenly apprehensive, of the edge in her voice, of the memory of fire and burning flesh; he thinks of a restless, rolling heat, flames spreading easily under the midday sun.

"... your ... lover. Boyfriend. Do you ever wish he would return?"

Narukami looks carefully at him, a distant, sidelong stare. He feels like she's dissecting him with her eyes, unblinking and curiously scarlet. He knows that if he turns his head, he will be able to see himself. 

"Sometimes. Maybe. It doesn't matter."

"What did he do?"

Narukami pivots to look him squarely in the eye. "Nothing."

"I don't think I understand."

"Maybe I'll tell you another time, so you know what not to do." She laughs. Souji feels unease bloom in the pit of his stomach. "And what about you? Is there anyone you love? Anybody you left behind and wished you could return to, mayhap?"

"It's still none of your business, Narukami-san."

"Do you love still them, then?"

"I," he begins and stops. "I don't know, what about you?"

In the silence, she grows quieter, stiller. She looks pale, sickly in the afternoon heat.

"Do you still love him?"

"I don't know."

"Why did you love him?"

"Because there was nobody else. Because we were each other's world."

"Why do you hate him?"

She sets the gas pump back into its cradle and tucks his payment into her pocket. He thinks she isn't going to answer when she walks away.

"... because of the weakness of his heart," she says without turning around. His scooter sputters as he starts it and when he looks back, she's lost in the heat haze hanging low over the road.

.

**???**

He dreams that night about emptiness and a formless world. He's wearing stiff, heavy robes; Narukami wears white. Her fingers seem fine and brittle beneath his. They hold Izanagi's spear in their hands; the fog parts before its blade.

"We'll shape our own world here," she says.

(Your relationship with Narukami has intensified ...)

.

**V.**

"I had a dream about you."

"Oh?"

They stare at each other across the space of the darkened shrine. Tonight she's wearing a kimono, embroidered with spider lilies. White on white, tied with a bright red obi. The mother-of-pearl on her comb glints with light from the streetlamps.

"I hope it was a good dream. Nothing too risqué, I trust."

"You're full of surprises." He seats himself next to her. There is no warmth to her skin underneath the heavy silk. "Why are you here?"

"To feel close to the gods."

Souji tilts the umbrella back. Rain trickles between overhanging leaves. He passes her fish wrapped in paper and plastic; she slips gems into his hands, and he tucks them into his pockets.

"Kuroda-san said her husband ascended to the heavens. I suppose mine did, too."

"So, he's dead. Are you mourning him? Praying for him?"

There's an ema in her hands. She turns it over in her palm, running her thumb over the wood. "You're such a romanticist, Souji Seta. Don't be foolish; I'm here to see what people wish for."

"Looking for inspiration? Wishing for other people's wishes to come true seems too abstract. The gods will have a hard time interpreting that one, let alone fulfilling it."

"You think so, do you."

"I know it."

Narukami smiles. Her cheekbones seem even sharper in the harsh shadows. "You know a lot."

"But not enough. I don't even know your name."

"Oh, but you do. Didn't your friends tell you?"

"No. Not all of it. Nobody seems to know you."

"Nami," she says and takes his hand in hers. Her skin is cold to the touch. "Does it sound familiar?" She traces the kanji onto his palm.  _Nami_. Ten strokes; a water radical.  _Waves, billows._

"Nami Narukami. It doesn't sound real."

"You're one to talk, Souji Seta," she replies almost playfully. "Are you really a ruler of many?"

"And what of you, then? Is it your wish to usurp the gods?"

She chuckles, low and husky. "I guess names can be prophetic, in a way. Do you ever feel alone, despite the hearts you rule over?"

He thinks of the tower silhouetted against a velvety green sky; of his shadow that treaded checkerboard hallways rimed with blood. It had said almost the same thing then, before it reshaped itself into something indistinct yet comforting, something he now understands to be Izanagi.

"That's what you fear, isn't it? To be abandoned by the ones you love. By the ones you thought loved you. To go through all of that, yet again."

"You wouldn't ... you shouldn't know about that. You're not me," he says before he can stop himself. Nami's eyes narrow with amusement.

"That is correct," she says and he breathes out a sigh he didn't know he was holding.

"It's because before that, you're me. You're  _him_. We're one and the same, always repeating our mistakes. An endless clumsy dance."

When the rain stops the shopping district is dark and empty. They part in opposite directions.

.

**???**

"Why are you only in school when it rains?"

"The sun is strong this time of the year. Do you know why creatures like vampires and zombies fear the sun?"

"Uh," he says and scribbles out an answer on the review paper he's supposed to be doing. "Because it burns them?"

Nami rests her chin in her palm. Souji wonders whether he's ever seen her without rainwater clinging to the ends of her hair. "Very good. Dead things rot faster in the heat. Exams sure are killer, aren't they?"

He doesn't laugh. "That's terrible. You have a morbid sense of humour."

(You feel like your relationship will get closer soon ...)

.

**VI.**

She visits him in November. He tells her he's not seeing visitors; she slides her bony shoulder through the gap before he can shut the door.

"You will rot in the confines of your home before you save her."

"How blunt," he murmurs, but allows her to lead him out of the house. They go to the highest part of town, high enough to see all of Inaba, the mountains in the distance, the Samegawa, wild and swollen with rain. Nami steps heedlessly through puddles splashing his legs; she didn't give him time to fetch an umbrella.

"They say that both the Far Shore and the entrance to the Yomi can be found around these parts."

Souji shivers. He's not sure whether it's from the cold, or the rain, or Nami's nonchalance.

"A pathway to the underworld, and a forgotten river. Do you know about the legend that created our land?"

"Bits and pieces."

"A goddess descended to the Yomi here, after dying in childbirth. Strange, isn't it, how even gods had limits to their immortality? Her husband searched for her, but it was too late; she had waited in the land of the dead for far too long."

Souji turns his collar up against the rain; it trickles through his hair and down the back of his neck.

"He made promises to plead for her release, and she believed him. However, he saw what she'd become, monstrous and rotting -- and he ran. He forgot the promises they made, the vows they took -- and abandoned her."

"That's cruel."

"Isn't it? Then, I must ask: why are you taking your time, when you promised to find your cousin? Have you abandoned her?"

 "No! No." He clenches his fingers around Nanako's bead ring. "Because I'm not strong enough. Not now. Not yet."

"Are you worried, perhaps, of your previous failings?"

He doesn't answer.

"Your hastiness." Nami leans close to him; she smells of rainwater and ash. She rests her forehead against his; he can see himself reflected twofold in her eyes, clear yet warped. He wonders if that's how she sees him.

"You are afraid of what you will find. How the other world will change her. Didn't you harbour that fear each time you went to save the others from the prisons they created themselves? Would you have run from the monsters that were born of them?"

"I won't run away."

She smiles crookedly. "Then prove it, Souji Seta. Prove to me the strength of your heart."

.

**???**

He dreams about Nami standing far away; a river stretches between them and he knows she's saying something. He can't hear anything over the roar of rushing water.

Red spider lilies bloom by her ankles. The red obi of her kimono cuts across the heavy white silk, livid as a weeping wound. Her eyes are red -- the colour of passion, of bloodshed, of murder. The air is thick and still and heavy with fog.

She burns before his eyes. The kimono's trailing sleeves catch first and it spreads up her body, across her face. The flowers blossom; their leaves fall. Nami reaches out towards him and he tries to take her hand.

The petals at her feet ignite. Teeth glint like pearls through her cheeks; the flesh peels itself from her fingers, her palms. She burns in a pyre of crimson blooms and charred silk, swathed in a shroud that disintegrates before his eyes. He runs, wading through water that eddies around his legs, threatening to sweep him away.

Her voice sharpens as he nears. "Don't follow," she says.

She turns away as he crosses to the far shore. Spider lilies twist themselves out of the yellow earth in her wake.

He wakes up to the memory of bones in his hands, of scarlet flowers blooming in between ribs and jagged vertebrae.

(Your relationship with Nami has intensified ...)

.

**reverse.**

She visits him on the twentieth of March. The fog is thicker than it was at the beginning of the year. He hasn't left the house for months. Not since Nanako died.

"You," he says when he opens the door. Nami doesn't step inside. He doesn't invite her to.

"I had hoped that you were stronger than your own despair. It seems as though I was wrong."

She pulls the red-black comb from her hair and places it in his hands.

"May you live and forget the choices you have made. Only emptiness awaits you now."

He watches her leave, the teeth of her comb digging into his palm.

.

**reset.**

Perhaps it wasn't the right choice, sparing Namatame. The false messiah, choked in a cloud of delusion.

"Do you regret it?" Nami asks. He can't make out where her outline ends and where the fog begins.

"I don't know."

"Are you afraid you made the wrong choice?"

"Yes." He touches her sleeve and curls his fingers hesitantly around the loose knit of her sweater.

"Foolish boy," she says and takes his hand in her cold ones. For once, there is no unkindness there.

.

**VII.**

Nami stays with him as he holds vigil over Nanako.

She slips into the hospital hallways long after the others have left, still and silent as a ghost.

"Why are you here?"

She brings with her the smell of rain and lilies. She cups Nanako's face in her hand and strokes her forehead. The motion is almost loving, almost maternal. "She just wanted to see her mother."

"How would you know that?"

"A woman's intuition. Do you think Kagutsuchi wished to know his own mother too?" Nami's fingers curl gently around Nanako's hands. "Poor thing. No child deserves to lose their mother. No mother deserves to lose her child."

The hum of the life support machines around them sounds deafening in the silence.

"Perhaps death would be a release from her suffering."

"A curse, you mean."

"I suppose you could say that. It's the oldest curse on mankind -- and even the gods are not above it."

Nami leans down and kisses Nanako's forehead. Souji stills. This is Nami.  _Nami_ , with her cruel red eyes. Nami, who speaks in riddles. Nami, who doesn't seem to exist for anybody else. "No," he says and grabs her wrist. The bones jut against his palm; her skin is cold and clammy to the touch.

Nanako draws a shallow, shuddering breath. "Big bro," she whispers and reaches towards him. "Big bro?"

He turns to Nami. She smiles.

"What did you do?"

"A small favour," she says and pulls her arm free from his grasp.

.

**???**

The gas station is empty at this time of the night. Nami sits atop one of the pumps, ankles crossed. How guileless she looks away from the harsh fluorescent hospital lights, speaking lightly of life and death.

"Do you believe in an afterlife?"

"No."

"Then what do you think comes after death?"

The gas station's mart doors slide open behind them. Souji turns his head as Adachi exits the shop with a cup of cheap coffee.

"Nothingness. The endless void," Adachi says when he draws closer, and slurps his coffee. His tie is even more askew than usual. He slumps against one of the gas pumps and runs a hand through his hair.

Nami hums under her breath, crossing and uncrossing her ankles. "And what do you think, Souji Seta? What do you think happens when you die?"

"I don't know."

"Have you heard of the mermaid who bargained with a sea-witch?  _Dan lille havfrue._  She failed to fulfill her end of the pact and faded to foam."

"Geez," Adachi says. "That's so morbid."

"There's no sea around these parts, so maybe here you'll just turn into the fog when you die."

"That'd be sad if it were true," Souji says.

Nami chuckles. "Would it?"

(You feel like your relationship will get closer soon ...)

.

**break.**

He watches the world end in December.

The shadows ooze through his television set; they ignore him because something else drives them away. He hasn't heard Izanagi's voice in days. The personae tying him to Nami have disappeared; Hel and Nephthys have long gone silent.

The yellow fog reminds him of the green skies over Tatsumi Port Island when the Tower of Demise unfolds itself from his school.

He finds Nami sitting on one of the gas pumps, watching the sky as shadows crawl and congeal beneath her feet. "Somebody's wish has come to fruition," she says.

"So it seems." He can see himself reflected in her eyes and wonders, fleetingly, when his turned yellow. A wild, shadow-gold, just like Izanagi's. His mouth tastes sour; when he licks his teeth, he can taste peaches.

"In the end, you returned to me after all." Nami rakes her fingers through his hair and pulls him close. He cups her face, and she disintegrates at his touch. His fingers slip through decayed flesh, his thumb sliding through her cheek.

When he draws away, there are peach seeds on his tongue.

"Welcome back, dearest," she says. Inaba is gone; they're surrounded by fog and twisting passageways.

.

**reset.**

When they leave Junes the sky is clear and blue for the first time in weeks.

In the distance, Yosuke, Teddie and Kanji's voices rise argue, comparing cuts and bruises. Yukiko laughs giddily and Rise, Chie and Naoto join in, more out of relief than anything else. How he's missed those sounds.

Nami strokes the fox and watches him from the  _torii_  of the shrine. Nobody seems to notice her.

"Congratulations."

"Thanks."

That night, his sleep is fitful; he dreams of a voice in the fog and his sword cutting through nothing. He wakes up to thunderstorms, and a winter chill seeping into his bones.

.

**VIII.**

"Take me to the beach."

And so he does. He waits as she fills up his scooter, and drives her to Shichiri beach.

She wears a new sundress, white like most of her clothes. The fabric is thin and flowing with fine pleats; a red-orange pattern crawls along the bottom half of the dress. It reminds Souji of his dream, of a ghost set flame.

"White?" he asks. "It washes you out a little."

A smile slithers up the corner of her mouth. "Ah, yes, you're one to talk."

Souji shuts up after that. He scuffs the toe of his loafers against the sand and tries to remember if he owns anything that does not fall into the grey-black-white spectrum. If he even owns anything with more than ten percent colour saturation.

He slips off his shoes and joins her by the water's edge. Small waves lap at his toes and swirl around her ankles. 

"What do you think shapes the world?"

"I don't know. Strength? Forgiveness? Kindness?"

"Hm."

He follows her back to shore. The edge of her dress trails seawater. Sand speckles her shins; she tucks her feet under her thighs and leans back, resting her weight on her hands.

"What about you?" he asks.

"Three things."

"Oh?"

Nami holds up three fingers. "Hope. Despair. Emptiness." She cants her head to the side; Souji follows her gaze. She lines up broken shells by her ankles, neat and orderly. 

"I have seen a man driven to despair after he's lost everything. After everyone else has abandoned him, and turned their backs to his cries. I have seen a man hollowed-out by bitterness. He sees nothing in his future, and wishes for the end of everything."

"And what of hope?"

Her voice is quiet, lost amongst the roar of the tide and the cries of seagulls. "I don't know."

.

**???**

Two days before Christmas, he dreams yet again.

He takes a comb from his hair, darkwood and gold. He wades through the forgotten river and climbs down a red corridor. Nami's waiting for him in a yawning, empty space. There are spider lilies woven into her hair. 

Something grasps at his ankles, at his wrists. Nami watches as myriad hands pull him down, down, down.

They're falling. The red gives way to filth and rot; her hair loosens from the teeth of her comb, pooling below her head. Her smile is a bloody slash; it splits across her face, cutting across her mouth. 

The comb in his hand is burning, its heat inching towards his fingers; maggots and grave-beetles skitter away from the light.

"You never listened," she says and impales him with Izanagi's spear.

(Your relationship with Nami has intensified ...)

.

**IX.**

"Are you doing anything tonight?"

It's Christmas Eve. Nami gazes up at the overcast sky, hands tucked into the pockets of the Moel jacket. Her hair lies heavy and damp between her eyes.

"No."

She smiles slyly beneath her fingers. "I'm surprised."

"Why?"

"Guess."

He shrugs. "I guess I also wanted to ask you the same thing."

"My, such familiarity."

"You've said that to me before. This time, I mean it."

She laughs. "Then take me to your house."

It's nice not being along in the house again. Nami pads quietly around the house and gently runs her hands over the surfaces, as though committing them to memory.

In his room, Nami sits on his sofa, facing the TV. He sets hot tea on the table before her.

"You once asked me what my lover did," she says without looking at him. "And I told you, nothing."

"Do you still love him?"

"Sometimes, I thought I found him again. Or maybe I just found in others what he made me feel. Hope that he would regret his folly, and return. Despair, for being left behind. Emptiness," she adds and turns to look at him, "which stayed with me for a long, long time, long after the anger left."

Souji doesn't know what makes him do it. Maybe it's Ereshkigal willing him into action, with the promise of furthering bonds. He kisses her and is acutely aware of her eyes boring into his. He imagines, for a moment, the taste of peaches on the tip of his tongue.

"You're just a replacement," she says. "I know," he replies.

She unbuttons his shirt and slides it off his shoulders; he works off her blouse, getting his hands tangled in her uniform's sailor collar. She grips him and pulls him off-balance; they tumble to the floor, his head hitting the carpet. Her arm sweeps carelessly across the table, spilling the tea. Other objects scatter, too -- plunder from the TV world, trophies from hableries and minotaurs. Nami gives up on working his pants off and strokes him through the fabric as he arches towards her.

Somewhere along the way he finds himself on top of her; or maybe it's what she permits. She jerks against him as he enters her; her fingernails dig into his back, his shoulders, and she turns her head towards him. "You once told me my name didn't sound real."

Her hands are cold. He nods, holding himself still over her. Her eyes are wide and still; her thin chest rises and falls rapidly as she takes in shallow, gasping breaths. "You don't have to--"

"I'll tell you."

She leads and he follows and tries to match her. He hisses as she carves jagged, irregular strokes across his back with her nails; jerky characters that make no sense. He has no idea what they say and instead whispers the syllables of what he knows of her name against her skin, against her throat and cheek and jaw until she stiffens around him and goes still. 

They stay that way for a while, entangled in each other's bodies. "Is this your first time?" she asks.

"Yes ... no. I don't know." And he really doesn't. Maybe in this life, it is. In another, maybe it was familiar. Their fingers slide easily together and he wonders why he remembers. What he remembers. "I don't know," he says again. "I'm sorry."

The second time around is gentler. "Go," she barks out. He braces her as she rides him, his hands over her hipbones.

His hands twine into her hair and she kisses him, her teeth scraping across his. Her knees bump against his ribs; he holds her as she comes, as she bites down on his shoulder and bows her head, forehead nestled against his neck. She collapses on him and he wraps his arms around her. This, too is familiar, he thinks.

Her breaths are short and sharp, her skin slick with sweat; he turns his head to follow her gaze and finds her staring at the television set.

"What do you wish for the most in this world?" he asks her. She moves her hand and strokes his arm; her skin is the warmest it's been since he's known her.

Her answer is the same as it was before: "for the wishes of others to be fulfilled. What about you?"

"... the truth."

"Most people would wish for wealth. Power. Glory. Love."

"I'm not most people."

Just as she did when they first spoke, she laughs and this time, there is sadness there. "Indeed, you aren't."

.

**???**

He never sees her again.

She vanishes as suddenly as she appeared. On the twentieth of March, the skies are misty and overcast.

When he steps out of the house, the fog shifts around him, a ghostly embrace. He can't find her anywhere; nobody remembers her, nobody's ever seen her.

"What transfer student?" Yosuke asks. "Narukami? There's no such person here. You all right, bro?"

"Yes," Souji says, annoyed. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."

He goes to the shrine and clasps his hands in prayer. What for, he doesn't know. He rings the bell and tosses a coin into the offertory box; the fox watches him with beady eyes.

As he steps into the train, the mists separate and part. He watches Inaba's landscape dwindle in the distance, fog hanging low over the buildings.

.

**X.**

He retraces his steps to the first place he went to when he arrived. The path is familiar now, just as it was before, just as it was in a different lifetime, where another version of him crossed the river of forgetting.

Nami waits at the gas station. There are spider lilies woven into her hair.

"Did your wish come true?" His voice cracks.

"It will."

The rain starts quietly, a subdued drizzle that becomes a deluge. When he looks into Nami's eyes there's something else beyond, something cruel and exquisite and monstrous.

She strolls towards him, stepping into the rain. "Did you find your truth?"

"It's standing right before me."

Izanagi's voice thrums through his temples. Souji remembers what she scratched onto his back on Christmas Eve.

"Was it your real name?"

"What do you think, Souji Seta?"

"Izanami," he says and the god caged in his skull bellows. Souji doesn't know how to feel. His heart hurts, a quiet pull that feels like loss. "Why did you leave?"

She laughs, harsh and unkind. "The very same reason you did."

.

They find each other again at the end of the Yomotsu Hirasaka, where the barrier between the worlds is the thinnest.

She is wreathed in shrouds and decay, apotheosised on a throne of creaking bones. It's the most beautiful sight he's beheld.

"Izanagi," she murmurs. "And here I thought you wouldn't have the strength to face me again."

.

Souji doesn't know who he's watching dissolve into the fog -- Nami, the transfer student or Izanami, the goddess. One and the same, with their hellfire eyes and cryptic puzzles. Both familiar, yet utterly alien; they were the scent before rain and the burnt-ozone of lightning.

"I once asked you what you thought shaped the world. Do you remember?"

"Yes."

"Your answered amused me. How very naive of you."

He tries to laugh. "Yeah, I suppose so."

"Do you still hate me?" he asks, and he doesn't know whether it's his own question or whether it's voiced by the god of creation tucked within him.

"Yes," she says and laughs. It doesn't echo, the sound swallowed by the fog. "And yet, I will always forgive."

.

(She leaves him with nothing, and once again he leaves the Yomi with nothing. There is nothing to prove she was ever real, nothing to prove they ever met again.)


End file.
